Kindred Spirits

"Marilla is a famous cook. She is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill work. There's so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go by the rules. The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in."

Friday, September 16, 2005

The Blue Whale

Interesting fact I just discovered. The heaviest land mammal is the African Elephant, weighing in at 14,000 lbs, or 7 tons. Big guy, huh?

Yeah well, how about the heaviest marine mammal, the blue whale? This creature generally weighs about 150 tons. That is not a typo. 300,000 lbs. As much as 25 elephants. 2000 people. My house.

More facts:

  • The blue whale's tongue weighs as much as an elephant
  • Its heart weighs a half-ton, and it has 7 tons of blood in its body.
  • The baby gains 8.5 lbs an hour while drinking 130 gallons of its mother's milk a day (ugh.)
  • Its whistle is the loudest animal sound ever recorded, at 180 decibels (that equals the noise made by a navy cruiser.)
And here are some pictures.

Well, we humans are tiny creatures, aren't we!

1 Comments:

  • At 9:43 AM, Blogger Andrea said…

    Wow, that's amazing. It always helps to put things in perspective like that. It does make me feel awfully small and fragile.

     

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